Rob Dukes says that he was “as surprised as” everyone else when he was asked to return to EXODUS after a decade-long absence.Last month it was announced that EXODUS had parted ways with longtime singer Steve “Zetro” Souza and was being rejoined by Dukes.Souza joined EXODUS in 1986 after previously fronting the band LEGACY (which later became TESTAMENT). He remained in the band until their hiatus in 1993, but rejoined them for two years from 2002 to 2004. Dukes had joined EXODUS in 2005 (following Souza’s departure) and remained until 2014, when Souza rejoined.Regarding how he ended up back in the EXODUS fold, Rob told Mark Strigl (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “How it happened was Lee [Altus, EXODUS guitarist] and Gary [Holt, EXODUS guitarist] called me, and Tom [Hunting, EXODUS drummer] called me, and they all spoke to me individually to kind of see where I was at. And then they asked me, and I said, ‘Sure.'”I’m not gonna talk about why they did what they did [as far as parting ways with Zetro] — that’s on them to talk about, ’cause I have no idea,” he continued. “I mean, I kind of do, but it’s not my place. So, I’ll let them handle that end.”I was as surprised as you, man,” Dukes admitted. “I mean, when I got the call… Me and Gary didn’t speak as much, but me and Tom talk all the time. Me and Lee constantly talk about hockey and give each other shit — I’m a Rangers fan; he’s a Flyers fan — so we’re always in contact, especially during hockey season. And then, like I said, man, it came out of nowhere for myself too. And I took a day and decided, ‘Yeah, okay, I can make it work.’ ‘Cause I have to put my life on hold, the life I’ve been building for 10 years as a car builder and a welder. But I sat down with the people I work for and the people I work with and I explained the situation and they were all, like, ‘Yeah, go do it, man. You only live once.’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah, cool. That’s exactly how I was thinking about it.’ So, it all worked out, man. And everybody’s stoked and happy.”As for the timeline for a new EXODUS studio album — his first with the band in a decade and a half — Dukes said: “I’m going up [to the San Francisco Bay Area] in a couple of weeks and start doing vocals on the new record. They have a bunch of songs written. Basically, right now they’re working out the composition and the drums and stuff. Once again, I’m the fucking new guy, so I’m not really in the loop on things. I just know that I’m gonna be there in the first week of March and then I’ll probably be there for a while.”When Strigl noted that Gary said in a recent interview that EXODUS’s next album likely won’t arrive before 2026, Rob said: “I don’t know. I don’t have that information. Like I said, I’m the fucking new guy again. They just asked me, ‘Hey, can you do this, this and that?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, I can make that happen.'”For me, it was a lot of scrambling trying to get the projects that I’m involved with, the cars I’m working on, trying to get them to either a finish point or at least a decent stopping point and dealing with other people’s expectations and putting their expectations on hold a little bit,” Rob explained. “So it was kind of like a dance, and I was pretty stressed until about a week and a half ago when things just kind of, like, ‘Okay. This is the timeline. This is cool. And everybody’s happy and everybody’s cool. And I get to go do this thing that…'”I love doing it, man,” Dukes said about playing with EXODUS again. “I love hanging out with these guys. It’s just fun. It was fun to do, and it’s fun to be a part of this situation. And I’m glad they asked me to come back, man.”On the topic of the musical direction of the new EXODUS material, Rob said: “I’ve heard a few tracks, and they’re just really fast. It’s fucking thrash metal, and it’s EXODUS, for sure. I’ve heard bits and pieces. Actually, I went up to San Francisco two or three weeks ago and I sat in on a writing session with Gary and Tom. And it was awesome, man. I was, like, ‘Goddamn. All right, cool. This is kind of right where I left off.'”Dukes also touched upon EXODUS’s touring plans, which will include two very special “Bonded By Blood” 40th-anniversary shows (April 25 at UC Theatre in Berkeley, California and April 26 at House of Blues in Anaheim, California). “So we’re doing that,” he confirmed. “I don’t know exactly how many shows. I know our first show is April 5th. It’s in Philly at the Decibel [Magazine Metal &] Beer festival. And then a tour starts at the end of April and runs through the middle of May or end of May or something like that. And that’s all I’m aware of at this point. I know there are some festivals in Europe. I don’t have any of those dates. Like I said, I’m the fucking new guy. So, I’m just rolling with it. I mean, I’ll probably know more once I get to the the Bay Area and start hanging around those guys. And like I said, man, I’ve been trying to try to tie up all the ends of my life here in Arizona before I have to bail and leave. So that’s what I’ve been concentrating on. And I know that all that stuff will just work out the way it’s supposed to.”Dukes previously joined EXODUS in January 2005 and appeared on four of the band’s studio albums — “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” (2005),”The Atrocity Exhibition… Exhibit A” (2007),”Let There Be Blood” (2008, a re-recording of EXODUS’s classic 1985 LP, “Bonded By Blood”) and “Exhibit B: The Human Condition” (2010).Earlier this month, Holt told Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic about the progress of the songwriting sessions for EXODUS’s follow-up to 2021’s “Persona Non Grata” album:  ”We were gonna try to put it out this fall, but we needed more time for the songwriting. So we’re going in the studio here in just a couple of weeks, but by the time we finish the record, we’d have to have it mixed and turned in within two more, and that’s just rushing it.”We’re just working away,” Gary explained. “The album will be done when it’s done. We’re not gonna rush it. The last album was fucking phenomenal. So, I’m always trying to top the last one, and this one’s gotta be fucking as good or better than ‘Persona’, which I rank number two — it’s my second-favorite EXODUS album behind [1985 debut] ‘Bonded By Blood’.”When Ratches noted that EXODUS has always had strong personalities fronting the band, from Paul Baloff to Steve “Zetro” Souza to Rob Dukes, Holt concurred. “That’s just part and parcel of being a frontman, I guess,” he said. “I think most frontmen in metal do [have strong personalities]. From all my friends, guys like [OVERKILL’s] Bobby Blitz — he’s a total frontman, strong personality. He’s awesome. He’s a character. The rest of us are allowed to be a little normal, I guess, normal-ish. EXODUS were always a fucking band of lunatics anyway, especially in our youth when all five of us were certifiably insane.”But, yeah, that’s a hard job being a frontman,” he continued. “You don’t have a guitar to hide behind. You’re standing there exposed. You have a microphone in your hand, maybe a mic stand, maybe half a mic stand, but that’s the extent of what you’ve got to hide behind, kind of. So it’s hard.”All the vocalists in EXODUS have all contributed amazing shit, Baloff being the gold standard, and Zetro has done amazing work with the band, and so has Rob,” Holt added. “And people will say things like, ‘Well, this record is so heavy or this era because of Rob.’ I write the songs the way I write them regardless of who’s fucking singing… I don’t write to the guy singing, and I never have. Those songs on the last album would be the same if they were written for Paul, if he was alive, or as they were written for Zetro or written for Rob. The same goes for the Rob Dukes albums. I just write the songs that are in my head at that time.”Although EXODUS rarely gets mentioned alongside the so-called “Big Four” of 1980s thrash metal — METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER and ANTHRAX — the aforementioned “Bonded By Blood” LP inspired the likes of TESTAMENT, DEATH ANGEL, VIO-LENCE and many others to launch their careers and is considered one of the most influential thrash metal albums of all time.[embedded content]